Tonight, on New Hampshire Crossroads.

School children are writing more and enjoying it, thanks to a revolutionary new teaching method.

I get a kick out of this part.

The toilet explodes.

Then, meet Terry Ward, writer, publisher, and curator of the Acworth Langdon Town Dump.

Thinking man, the thinking man's dump attendant.

And Fritz Wetherbee visits New Hampshire's crowded basement and uncovers some real treasures.

Hi, I'm Eloise Daniels, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music Local presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads on Channel 11 is made possible in part by Shaw's Supermarkets.

Keep New Hampshire beautiful.

Recycle your aluminum cans at Shaw's where you're someone special.

First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

By a grant from the Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers, We’re right for New Hampshire.

And Cineworks Productions, Incorporated, producers of high impact corporate and commercial programing for over two decades.

Our first story this evening is about an exciting new way of teaching reading and writing.

Its effectiveness is being proved in schools throughout the country and even around the world.

80% of the schools in Australia now use this method, which was developed right here in New Hampshire.

The Spooky Willow Tree.

Now, where did you get the idea for that?

I got it from at my old house because I used to have a room right next to a willow tree.

It was about one night when I was in my bedroom, and the willow tree’s branches kept on knocking against the window and everything.

Just then, Kevin burst through the door, ,ooked back over his shoulder, and yelled, Well, you're one too and slammed the door and said it'll be a, it'll be a (inaudible).

Kevin, watch your language.

Karen said, mimicking her mother.

Then he heard Mr.

Bunnell walking down the hall singing Mony Mony, and he hid behind the cart.

Mr.

Bunnell rumbled to himself, I think I'll clean the music room first.

Andy noticed Mr.

Bunnell’s wooly arm extending behind the music cart.

It's been an incredible change.

The children turn out stories that are comparable to Lloyd Alexander at times.

Fantasy stories.

They write realistic fiction.

They write personal narratives.

They write mysteries.

And it was a whole change for me, too, because it really got me very excited about teaching again.

It's a new way to teach writing and reading, and it's called the Writing and Reading Process.

It all started with the initial research done by UNH professor Don Graves back in 1972.

His study showed that students really do want to write.

It also showed me what kinds of decisions students were making in the midst of writing.

They were capable of superior thinking with help from the teacher, and they were also capable of choosing their own topics, something that textbooks don't normally observe.

Textbooks come up with nifty first lines or topics for children to write about.

That's basically what I found out in that first study in, in 1972.

But then we went on to a new study, much more comprehensive, in 1979, right here in New Hampshire.

Well, the night before I started writing it, I had a dream about junior high, and it sounded pretty good.

So I started writing it into a book and it came out pretty good.

Now I'm publishing it.

In New Hampshire, we got far more detailed information about how children would actually revise.

Who would have believed that a student, without being prompted, would revise six and seven times until the text was the way the student wanted it to be?

We continue to find out that students, if given a very challenging kind of room with lots of opportunities to write, they continue to do so.

But we also learned something about teaching as well.

How important it was for teachers to confer and listen to students.

Oh, I have one more question.

Sure.

Where are you going?

What are you going to do with it?

Well, I don’t know, I'm already on page 35.

Okay.

Can you tell us a little bit about what's coming up next after this?

After the part I just shared?

Yes.

Well, they get the babysitter.

Kevin has a crush on her.

Uh oh.

And, I get a kick out of this part, the toilet explodes.

The newest study is being conducted by one of Don's colleagues, UNH professor Jane Hanson, here at the Stratham Memorial School.

They hope to gather more information about the connection between the books children read and the quality of their writing.

They're also looking at the teachers’ writing and reading habits and how that affects the students.

My writing, I never wrote prior to taking this course when I was forced to write, in essence, because that's how I learned how to do it.

It was a very scary experience and and which enabled me to see how the children would react to having to write.

I do share my writing with them.

I shared some poetry with them.

- actually happen.

Well, I suppose it could be.

Okay.

Yeah.

All right.

Any other comments or questions here?

Okay.

And I share my reading with them.

And I do read children's books as well as adult books.

And I share both of those with the children.

And that's essentially how they see it with me.

And they get to ask me questions and respond to my comments just the way I do to them.

It's far more the conditions for literacy in a room that affect what happens far more than methodology.

If teachers or administrators do not read and write themselves, including researchers, then students themselves are not going to see how important that process is to them.

Children might say to us, you know, I can't wait to grow up so that I won't have to write because I don't see you write, so maybe I can get out of this.

They need to see us do it.

What I want to write and, and I have to go through the process of brainstorming and to see what I want to write and everything.

And then I have to think of characters to do it on it.

And then I just start right in.

Writing this one right here with Michael over there.

And then John wanted to do it and he did it, and then he didn't want to do it anymore.

So now I'm doing it.

What's the name of it?

It's called Happened, It Happened on Sunday.

They've also found that the Writing and Reading Process can work for all ages, from preschool through high school.

E, e, e, e. E, e. E. This is - When you put marks on the paper, I don't care what your age, if those marks are received as if you know something, it does something for the learner.

When a child gets a word down, the child can read it back for the first time.

It's a major victory.

Oh, is this all about football?

Neat.

We put some worms.

Okay, then, honey.

Let's go.

They rode to the bus station.

Sam kissed her mom goodbye and got on the bus.

When they were halfway there, a little girl dropped her talking doll out of the window.

Stop!

Somebody fell out of the window, somebody yelled.

We're talking about literacy here.

We're talking about the relationship of reading and writing for thinking.

That's what it's for.

But we have a long way to go.

We don't remotely yet know how it is that students read and write.

I like cats and kittens.

Meow.

Music I wonder what the world will be like 20 or so years from now, when millions of those young authors turn into adults.

The publishing business could see some phenomenal growth.

Word processor sales could go through the roof.

But more importantly, those kids will really know how to think and to articulate those thoughts.

And that could change the world.

Next, we turn to an author who is no beginner.

Terry Ward of East Acworth in Sullivan County, writes and publishes a four-page newsletter entitled Notes From the Dump.

An unusual title, yes, but then Terry is an unusual writer with plenty to say.

I'm a dump attendant.

That's my, that's my title.

Curator, we made up, right?

Although it's listed that way in the town budget.

Thinking man.

The thinking man's dump attendant.

Those tires aren't bad, really.

If I had some red paint, they'd be good.

My Peon to Pollock, an ode to Jackson Pollock.

Plenty of furniture.

Terry Ward is the man in charge at the Acworth Langdon Town Dump.

It's a responsible job that pays, but it also provides a newsroom for his other job as self-appointed editor of a newsletter he calls Notes From the Dump.

See all the tires and this (inaudible).

If you look up close, maybe you’re (inaudible) there’s trash sticking out of it in variety of colors.

Refrigerators.

It's just like the real dump.

This is by Donna Treat Mole Your truck in there?

My truck’s in the background.

That's about where it's going to end up if I don't fix it.

Put on music to work by, in the guise of Gioachino Jackie Boy Rossini.

Music Music to write Notes From the Dump by.

Notes from the Dump is an unpredictable combination of local goings on, births, deaths, and politics.

It's full of editorial content, sometimes wry, sometimes sentimental.

What I put in here is what I think and what I feel and what I hear.

And Notes From the Dump about the town of Acworth, Langdon and surrounding area.

I get writer's block now and then, but to the reader, that may be a blessing, you know?

So it's hard to say where you get ideas.

They just come to you sometimes.

Like, This one.

Want to hear this one?

It's called Talk About a Eulogy.

Paul Gauguin is surely one of the world's great artists.

But the French bishop of the Marquesas Islands, where Gauguin died in 1903, said of the great painter at his death, the only noteworthy event here has been the sudden death of a contemptible individual named Gauguin, a reputed artist, but an enemy of God and everything that is decent.

Music We'll see.

I feel I'm a painter and a writer, painter slash writer.

I’ve never felt I was an artist, because I think that's more not just your talent, but it's a temperament, too.

And I don't believe I have it.

This is Notes From the Dump, Issue 18.

One of 500 copies that will be turned out here in the next 20 or so hours, if I don't make too many mistakes.

I love to do it, and it's not a drag at all.

And actually, my journals are Notes From the Dump, but I just went public with them.

And people like them, so as long as I can keep doing it, I will.

It's not cheap.

No, it costs me $100 a week I would say, it does.

So it's not cheap, but, I don’t know, I enjoy doing it.

I'm a good writer.

I know I don't say that to brag, but I'm a good writer.

Don't you think so?

Oh, home from the wilds.

Terry's lived much of his life on the road.

His two children, Casey and Sean, grew up with their mother.

And only during the last few months have they really gotten to know their father at all.

Just recently did I start writing letters to him.

And we started writing, and I don't know.

And then I decided to move over here and then discovered he writes and he paints.

And I don't know if he'd call it a hobby or a job, or I think he likes it and he enjoys doing it.

I haven't always known that he was a writer, but I do enjoy reading his Notes From the Dump, too.

Maybe, he figures somebody's got to do it, you know?

How you doing, cubby?

That's all you got right there?

Ten years from now, I don't know.

I'd like to be a I'd like to be living healthy, kids healthy, money.

Yeah.

My my fortune cookie at the Chinese restaurant in Cambridge said you will enjoy material wealth and comfort in old age.

So I'm just trying to hang on.

When does it begin?

Old age, I mean.

Now, where's the money?

Thanks for your donation, cubby.

We'll see you when I see you.

You can get copies of Notes From the Dump free at the Acworth Langdon Town Dump, the South Acworth Village store, Midway Pizza in Alstead, and a number of other places in the area.

Terry doesn't sell subscriptions, but he will accept contributions to help toward the cost of publishing and mailing, and he'll send out sample copies.

If you'd like to get in touch with Terry, drop us a line here at New Hampshire Crossroads.

New Hampshire has a rich maritime tradition.

The seacoast has been home to shipbuilding ever since the first colonists settled this land.

Tonight we traveled to Kensington, New Hampshire, where that tradition of crafting sailboats by hand remains intact.

Meet Gordon Swift, one of the last builders of wooden boats.

Music You have to think (inaudible) about wood, looking at its natural state and what it goes through out in nature, and the trees, the way they bend and move and how durable they are.

It's got to be good in a boat.

Music It can be fixed, it can be worked on.

And if it's properly cared for, we have friends that have a boat that’s 60 years old and that's still just as good as the day it was built.

If it's well cared for.

And that's why I feel that - I don't know whether it's whether it's oak or iroko or whatever it is.

Okay.

No, look at, back here they were.

It was an awful nice job of old building.

Excellent job of boat building.

Music If it seems that building a wooden boat has become one of the final vestiges of colonial craftsmanship, it's because it probably has.

Gordon Swift of Kensington, New Hampshire, is one of a select few.

No computers here, no high technology.

Swifty, as his friends call him, cuts his own timber.

He mills it and over the course of some 7000 hours, shapes it into a boat that is elegant, simple, and seaworthy.

A wooden boat.

I think you can make a wooden boat that will perform just as well as glass boats.

And, but I think the wood has a different feel to it.

It's not so noisy, and the glass boats tend to become more canoe shaped and lighter because they go fast, most of them, that's what they all tend to be, is they go fast and they just don't have the seakeeping qualities, as far as I'm concerned, that the wooden boat does, or the feel.

A wooden boat feels substantial underneath them.

It's obvious that Swifty is a man dedicated to his craft.

Simple tools and natural materials are all he needs to fashion a boat that is so well made, the wood seems to have grown in place.

Building and repairing wooden boats has been at the core of what Swifty does and who he is for nearly 30 years now, but he is also a businessman.

The romantic notion of building wooden boats has had to surrender somewhat to what some folks might call progress.

Let's face it, you have to sort of roll with the punches.

If there were 100 people outside here wanting a wooden boat built why, yes, but I have tempered my opinion a little bit.

And I do work on fiberglass, but most of the time when I work on fiberglass, it's increasing the amenities and making it a little bit more than what naturally comes on that boat.

But despite or maybe because of the technology that's encroaching on his world, Gordon Swift still finds great joy in wooden boats.

I guess the most satisfying thing is that after you've worked on so many boats and everything else, just to be able to sail somewhere and look over and say, hey, there's one I built, or there's one I worked on with Bud, and I meet a lot of people on the coast that are sailing around on boats that Bud and I built.

And it's very gratifying to see boats that I did.

The builders of wooden boats, a colonial tradition that is passed on almost literally from generation to generation.

It's the love of the sea and sailing.

It's a heritage where the building of the boat, the toil, the tears, the swearing, and the laughter is as important as the boat itself.

It's a lesson that Gordon Swift learned many years ago from a master.

And I heard about this man named McIntosh in Dover, and I finally went over and met Mr.

McIntosh, and he said, would you like to help me deliver this boat?

And I said, sure.

So I went on a trip on a boat he'd just finished.

And after that I was gone.

And I had to, nothing doing, I had to build boats.

And I knew he had a schooner coming to build.

I said, Mr.

McIntosh, I want a job.

And he said, okay, I’ll give you a two months’ trial.

And there's about 20 boats and 13 years later, we parted company.

Next week, we'll return to Gordon's shop and meet the man who is a living legend among boat builders.

We'll have a chance to listen in as Bud McIntosh reminisces about the trials and tribulations that stem from a passion for fine wooden ships.

The New Hampshire State Historical Society has a permanent exhibition, a library, a gift shop, a Concord coach, and always a current exhibition.

But did you ever wonder where the artifacts that aren't on display are kept?

Fritz Wetherbee went in search of where New Hampshire's history is stored, and he found it.

Dreams, it is said, are the random ruminations of memory’s attic.

In dreams we visit the bits and pieces of our filed away lives, and what strangeness it is to call together the events of only a moment ago, beside the things of long ago.

Music And sometimes we dream awake, thrown into the dream by a song or a smell, a word, a phrase.

Some music.

Antique shops do this.

Random objects, dust-covered, relating to one another only in the fact that sometime, long ago, they were useful.

This is the rotunda at the New Hampshire Historical Society in Concord.

This is the place where they have a Concord coach, and where they have the portraits of Daniel Webster and Franklin Pierce.

And, you know, I always had this fantasy that maybe way, way down in the basement of this place, there was a whole collection of antiques that hardly ever got shown.

So I called up the curator, Barbara Austin, and I asked if I could come by, and she said, sure.

And you know something?

It was just exactly what I thought it would be.

Music Down in the bowels of this handsome building, there is a room with docks and drawers, hooks and niches and shelves, and stored here is the collective memory of an entire state.

Museum curator Barbara Austin was our Beatrice for this subterranean tour.

It's like being in your grandmother's attic.

Only there's a lot more stuff here than it would be in your grandmother's attic, I hope.

Musical instruments.

We have some lap organs and some bass viols.

Cellos.

And these were made in Concord.

Most of these were.

The, The?

The bass viols.

Yeah.

Is that right?

There’s a family in Concord that made them.

And these you set in your lap and push up and down.

There’s a bellows inside.

That's what this is right here.

This piece is the bellows.

Beautiful.

All right, now, we have here - Sculpture and a couple of examples of Rogers groups.

This is Rogers?

Nope.

It's not.

It's by L. M. French, but the Rogers group down there.

Okay, now, who is Rogers?

He was a sculptor from Manchester, and he created these little vignettes that were then cast in plaster.

And they became very, very popular in the Victorian period.

Americans were trying to emulate European style, and they couldn't afford necessarily to go out and buy a marble bust or a marble whatever.

So they they would settle for something like this that they could put on a mantle or on a side table and show that they had good taste.

Oh, toys, look at these beautiful toys.

This is just a small scattering of what we have.

We have file drawers filled with toys out in the back.

Can I see those?

Sure.

We could look at those?

Oh, yes.

I see you in there a car.

Nice.

Has a trolley.

Yeah.

Oh, yes.

Yes.

This car.

There is something about opening a drawer, an anticipation and a reward.

The reward is that it's not empty.

In fact, like all of the hundreds of drawers in this place, here there is treasure.

This car, I think, was made in France.

And there's a lady in the back with her feather boa, if you can see her.

Look at that.

And the chauffeur.

And some nice little mini dolls.

Or penny dolls.

Oh, oh!

It’s a China.

I'm in love.

Oh, she's so beautiful.

Row on row of guns and swords and artwork and furniture and toys.

Lace and costumes and canes and China.

Boxes and bicycles.

Bed warmers, clocks, and quilts.

All sleeping here.

Cataloged and tagged like Lazarus, awaiting the resurrection.

And yet most of the stuff here will never get publicly shown.

But that's okay too, because this is a world where most things are expendable.

And if the stuff wasn't here, it probably would be lost.

And isn't it nice to know that at least here, the dreams are still intact?

The dreams are safe.

Music Currently, the New Hampshire State Historical Society is featuring an exhibition on the presidential primaries.

And the Society is open from 9:00 in the morning till 4:30 in the afternoon on weekdays, and on Saturdays and Sundays it's open from noon until 4:30.

Fritz is with me today because for the next several weeks, he will be hosting New Hampshire Crossroads.

I've taken a new job.

What are you doing?

I'll be anchoring the 6:00 and the 11:00 news on Channel two in Bangor, Maine.

Wow.

Fancy job.

You know, Eloise, over the years, I've watched this program.

And the thing that has impressed me the most about it is your professionalism.

You know, it really has made the show hold together.

You really will be missed.

And we have a little gift for you.

Because we love you.

Oh my goodness.

Thank you.

If I can get it open.

Oh my goodness.

They're beautiful.

The New Hampshire loon.

I will miss New Hampshire and miss New Hampshire Crossroads.

Thank you.

And we'll miss you.

Well, that’s our show for this week.

Next week?

Coming up next week, an innovative teen challenge program in Dover sets kids’ hearts pounding on a 30ft climbing wall.

And Fritz Wetherbee recalls a Milford genius whose Depression Era dream was to build an airplane for every American household.

For New Hampshire Crossroads, I'm Eloise Daniels.

Theme Music Local presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads on Channel 11 is made possible in part by Shaw's Supermarkets.

Keep New Hampshire beautiful.

Recycle your aluminum cans at Shaw's, where you're someone special.

First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

By a grant from the Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

We're right for New Hampshire.

And Cineworks Productions, Incorporated, producers of high impact corporate and commercial programing for over two decades.

Theme Music